I’ve missed our ‘dining room table activities’. It feels like ages since we last cranked up the music and took some time to share some time. So, this morning we did: art, table tennis (as you do) and, of course, lunch.

‘Land of the dinosaurs’ by Dylan Piper

‘Transitions’ by Becky Piper

Dylan created his first game: ‘Cat & Mouse’ on the Raspberry Pi this afternoon using 16 steps on Scratch. Actually, those few steps did turn into a few more as there was quite a bit of experimentation with the ‘costume’ options and ‘shrink’ sprite tool… Needless to say, he thought it was awesome, before he headed off to play Wormy, Tetromino For Idiots (which he thinks was built by some bully) and Squirrel Eat Squirrel (where he managed to achieve the status of ‘Omega Squirrel’).

Still need to sort out the audio on it though…

We’re rounding off the day with some comedy and Britain’s Got Talent auditions on Catch Up 🙂

In today’s Art + Board Games + Sharing Club we drew Sam and Steve the scorpions and their pedipalps (pincers) – thanks to our new ‘Draw Really Cool Stuff’ book by Doug DuBosque. Dylan then excavated the final 2 dinosaurs from a block of plaster so that we could progress to the accompanying ‘Dinosaur World’ board game.

23rd Jan 2014: A 3d pepper
I could have put a couple more contours around the front and the contours at the bottom should be inverted..23rd Jan 2014: A 3d apple

In our Art + Board Games + Sharing Club this evening, we decided to continue with our 3d technique and look at some healthy foods. ‘Board’ got removed from the club’s title and club members disbanded as Dylan then decided he’d prefer to play on the Spanish MindSnacks app this week – as he “really needed to get to Level 7”.

As I completely missed the deadline for after school clubs (which are all now full), we’re starting our own highly exclusive out-of-school clubs: Art + Board Games + Sharing Club on a Tues/Wed/Thurs (depending on other evening commitments) and Football + Music Club on a Fri evening.

We decided to hold the inaugural meeting of our Art + Board Games + Sharing Club tonight – where we magically came up with another pair of hands and battled to grab the greatest number of aliens.
Manic Marshians score:
Dylan 2, Becky 1.

I’m not sure whether this fits the Post-a-Healthy-Picture challenge, but we’re now in the planning phase for our Friday Football + Music Club! 🙂

Boy: It was me – sweating! Because I was running so much. And I really did that today – I ran a lot.
Actually it wasn’t me sweating, it was me with a swoosh behind me – you know when you’re running SO fast that the air swooshes? It tasted sooooo yummy.

Boy: Let’s play trampoline battles where we have to try and make each other fall over without pushing! Round 1 is: You’re only allowed to bounce around in a circle. On Round 2 you can do bouncing and knee drops. On Round 3 you have to show ALL your best moves – seat drops, pike jumps, tuck jumps – anything you want! Ready?

Me: It’s up to Vikki, if she’s OK with it, then so am I – but remember that people come first.

D: I KNOW people come first… but I don’t know what it means.

Me: It means that, if you’re playing on a game and a real person talks to you, you must LISTEN to that person. And, if they say you have to stop playing, you have to stop playing. Without getting angry. And, if you have a choice between playing with friends or playing by yourself on a game, you should choose playing with your friends.

D: And I know what you can do so you can listen – you can DIE on the game!

Me: Yes – sometimes people choose to lose on purpose – and that’s OK.

D: Yeah, so you don’t do it by accident… You DO lose points though.

[We’re now trialling a week without monster games, following a spate of nightmares about monster creatures and broken nights]